Life often seems to challenge our capacity — time, energy, emotional and physical. Let’s just call it the ‘personal capacity challenge.” Personal capacity is a tricky topic. Tricky in that there is no standard measure of ‘capacity’from which to measure oneself against.

In addition, capacity expands and contracts depending on who and what is filling the capacity space.

In addition, you can add in the variable of the circumstances with which capacity is dealing with which affects whatever space capacity maintains in oneself.

Oh. And I am speaking of emotional capacity to “deal” as in deal with life — both the mind numbing blows life can deliver and the everyday stuff life stabbing you day in and day out.

And then there are the times when Life gives you any and all at the same time.

Regardless. Life demands that each and everyone of us maintain some sense of capacity.

Well. I imagine this is what I am writing about. Because we all have capacity and we all have capacity enough to handle and manage the typical everyday shit.

However.

It is ‘those times’ I am speaking of … when you look at someone and look at the crappy cards Life has dealt them during some finite period of time.

This finite time represents a small space in which you feel no one should have to bear that much of a burden. And despite the fact I wish I were referring to some theoretical aspect of Life, I am not. Unfortunately Life has a habit of asking some people to carry some fairly burdensome burdens within finite periods of time.

It is one of the unfortunate inherent duties of Life.

—

“Life is not theory.

It is reality, with inherent duties to everything and everyone.”

Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka

—

Now. Despite the fact each of us assumes this duty differently every one of us has a different emotional capacity. It’s kind of like walking into the Container Store with aisle after aisle of different shaped, different sized and different ‘strength’ material in its makeup. I say that because I believe we often judge others by either:

(a)

ourselves, or

(b)

what we believe someone’s capacity should be

<which is driven by culture, media, societal expectations>.

We shouldn’t.

And, frankly, we really cannot judge … unless you can place yourself in someone else’s shoes.

Why? Capacity is multidimensional. It is driven by experience and … well … just your own make up.

Some people just deal with all the various stuff well, and some don’t, and some get better as time goes on <although I would actually argue that everyone gets better at ‘dealing’ the more practice they get> and some just have no, or little, capacity.

Life tests our personal capacity all the time.

We currently live in a Life culture, personal & work, that places ever more stress on the individual to achieve and to do more with less, to work longer hours, to make a greater change to the world <and to themselves>, people often find themselves pushed beyond the limits of what they can endure.

And that is just the common everyday stuff.

The ‘unexpected’ Life test isn’t even included.

Inevitably this all leads to personal stress which is actually a physical response to situations. It’s your body trying to find a way through a challenging time. Obviously, ongoing stress actually has an effect on the way you think.

But here is the deal with capacity. Conceptually it is infinite <although we know it is finite>. Let me explain. This concept versus reality issue comes crashing to Life only when we get to the point that we can’t cope with, well, the fact we know we can’t cope anymore. It’s not hard to see in many cases of a meltdown what you’re looking at is someone who maxed out on their capacity. They got so far in the hole that there was no way of getting out.

“Sometimes we don’t know our own strength. It can be hard to tell just how much weight you can safely bear, or how much will crush you.

I’d like to think you can shoulder as big a burden as you believe you can, that it’s all a matter of will. Certainly a comforting thought.

Other times it’s hard to remember you had any strength at all. Then you can only hope to have someone to remind you … you were once fierce and able.”

Everwood

—

There has been some well done research studies on his topic.

===

In the 1980s, Howard Gardner outlined the presence of seven domains of intelligence; two of them were interpersonal and intrapersonal – these combined were the forerunner of what we now know as emotional intelligence.

The term was first coined by Peter Salovey, professor and psychologist at Yale University, and John Mayer, professor and psychologist at the University of New Hampshire.

In 1995 Daniel Goleman, the leading expert in this field, reported “IQ is only a minor predictor of success in life, while emotional and social skills are far better predictors of success and well-being than academic intelligence.”

Daniel Goleman’s research on social and emotional competencies in his 1995 book Emotional Intelligence, brought this concept into a much needed focus.

Goleman’s work teaches us that children’s emotional and social skills can be cultivated, so that the child will accrue both short-term and long-term advantages in regard to well-being, performance and success in life.

He outlines crucial emotional competencies basic to social and emotional learning:

===

– Self and other awareness:

Understanding and identifying feelings; knowing when one’s feelings shift; understanding the difference between thinking, feeling and acting; and understanding that one’s actions have consequences in terms of others’ feelings.

Emotional Capacity is the facility of our personality and feelings and how they engage with our mental processes and the reality of the world around us.

The various aspects of our emotional capacity is the level of emotional stress we can endure, our ability to monitor our emotions and our skill at modifying our emotions – meaning our ability to eradicate emotions that are dangerous, counter-productive or illogical to have and our ability to foster positive emotions and joy when it is logical or appropriate to do so.

And a person’s emotional capacity is actually a function of their emotional intelligence.

===

I say all this because many people are quite content to feel what they feel and perhaps as an afterthought to think about what they had felt.

<whew … I had to reread that a couple of times>

Let me try to say it this way. Few people consciously cultivate their emotional capacity, i.e., consciously developing the power of their rational mind on what is appropriate to feel and at what intensity.

Honestly I can see why people don’t.

You don’t know what you don’t know.

=

A soldier doesn’t know how he/she will act & perform in battle.

A mother doesn’t know how she will feel if her child dies.

A pet owner doesn’t know how he/she will feel when their long time companion dies.

=

It is the actual experience that tests the boundary of capacity.

That said. All this personal experience means that you can control your capacity as long as you can control, well, ‘self’. And I imagine that begins with understanding ‘self.’ What I mean by that is something called ‘understanding your emotional triggers’ or by increasing your awareness of them.

An emotional trigger is an experience that draws us back into the past and causes old feelings and behaviors to arise.

<For example, an ice cream sandwich may remind you of your childhood summer vacations, or gossiping coworkers could bring back images of high school cliques.>

Some triggers are situational and some are social.

Some people smoke more when they are out for drinks with friends.

Most people tend to eat more at holiday or family gatherings.

And then there are internal triggers.

Anyway. Bottom line? Just recognize the fact that we all have triggers. And triggers are individual <often>.

I added this because we tend to try and help people we care for based on our own experiences. That leads to using our own ‘triggers’ as guide posts for what we say, suggest and support our beliefs with.

That can be a mistake.

People can react differently to the exact same stimulus. Taking such variety into account improves communications and relationships.

I share all of this because if you recognize your emotional triggers you are better able to manage <or at least know> your capacity, but not necessarily others.

Lastly.

Help.

No matter how strong someone is, how resilient, how whatever … sometimes capacity is stretched to a break point. Or at least close to your capacity’s … well … capacity.

First.

Therapy is not a swear word. Nor is it any sign of weakness. It is simply a sign that you want to get to a better place … by any and all means necessary. The right professional help may make a big difference.

Second.

A strong support network. Close family and friends are absolutely vital to feeling validated and nurtured. When you’re dealing with stubborn issues, it’s always a comfort to know that you have people who care about you and want to help you.

Ok.

All that research and professional thinking aside.

As noted earlier capacity is multi-dimensional. There is capacity within a moment and capacity within the accumulation of moments. And your personal capacity can often be defined <managed> by pushing through and not dwelling.

Sure. Someone could suggest pushing through <or not dwelling> is simply a defense mechanism, i.e., a way of not dealing, a process of ignoring.

Ok. But not dwelling is not the same as not reflecting. Not dwelling simply suggests not lingering too long in that ‘capacity moment.’ Therefore I simply suggest that it is all about pushing through the moment. And you know why you push through these moments and choices?

Because while certain choices define the future direction of your life, choices do not end then & there.

Choices beget choices.

You will then get even more choices, maybe littler ones, but little nudge choices to course correct or make sure the original choice gets aligned optimally for whatever you really decided.

But that is part of capacity.

Despite all this ‘pushing thru’ all these choices and decisions are stored away in your head. And sometimes that doesn’t leave a lot of room for other stuff … grief … happiness … sadness … whatever … it is just all tangled up. And all this choosing shit I am talking about inevitably creates stress … stress on the system <you overall> and stress mentally.

And stress does funny things to us <and our capacity>.

But so do circumstances beyond our control <which I imagine is linked to stress in some way>. We all have a limit as to how far events can push us before something within us pushes back.

But. The thing is most of us never know that limit until we reach it.

—-

“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.”

Vernon Sanders Law

—-

This Life capacity test is a hard and brutal teacher.

I imagine anyone’s capacity would be challenged if you spent too much time trying to untangle all the stuff stored in your head. But I honestly am not sure it is worth the energy to try and untangle shit. You should maybe just look at the highlights, maybe invest some energy untangling any knots that are truly restrictive, and move on.

Now.

There are certainly moments in time when Life truly tests your capacity – grief, sadness, unhappiness in combination with typical Life demands – and it fills you up to overflowing if not exploding.

I have seen people deal in moments like this and frankly, I am often in awe. I am not sure I would have the capacity. But what I do know is that I see these people take on the capacity tests and those who succeed <not fail the tests> just don’t dwell too long <and too long is defined person by person> and just push through before the burdens of the moment become so heavy they cannot move to push through.

Moving from those moments shifts you as a person.

Call it ‘a passage in life.’

You see the world and yourself differently after you’ve gone through the events and emotional states that define each passage. Not stronger or weaker different, just different. These passages are emotionally and cognitively intense … as a result you fundamentally change as a person.

I am not saying better or worse … you just change.

All that said. Maybe that is what I should have said upfront: personal capacity is often defined by dwelling versus pushing through.

Because in the end, if you dwell, you get squeezed.

In America’s ‘just do it’ mentality we tend to squeeze our capacity almost irresponsibly <despite the fact we believe we are being quite responsible & selfless with our capacity>. I recognize irresponsible is a tough word, but, for a group of people who like planning, milestones and objectives we seem to leave no space for the unforeseen.

We just fill it all up to capacity.

Fill up everything including time, emotion and mental space. This creates emotional capacity challenges <because trying to do everything on our physical list also puts demands on our mental capacity … it is sometimes called ‘stress’>. And by emotional capacity challenges I mean things like grief & unhappiness … the sudden demands that Life puts on you mentally that create capacity challenges. These individual things stress an already ‘filled to the brim’ capacity creating chaos <by overloading the already 24/7 planned and mentally filled> life>.

What this means is that you either “don’t have time” to deal or have to “make time’ to deal all of which exponentially stretches an already maxed out capacity <or what you assume is maxed out>. All of this happening at a time when some focus would most likely help diffuse or diminish the challenges.

I mention all that to say we are often our own worst enemy with regard to capacity. We have immense capacity. More often than not more than what we believe.

However. That doesn’t mean it is limitless. It is finite. Why test the limits?

In the end?

—

“Lacking even paper

I write on my heart

turned inside out.

That is why it squeaks

at night like the earth’s axis

that turns me face to face

with the impossible.” –

=

Regina Derieva

—-

Our world squeaks as it constantly turns us toward being face to face with the impossible.

And, yet, face it we do.

And in doing so we constantly embrace our capacity.

Just don’t enjoy the embrace too much. Because personal capacity is often defined by dwelling versus pushing through. And dwelling is bad.

“Ninety percent of paid work is time-wasting crap. The world gets by on the other ten.”

―

John Derbyshire

We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism

================

How many times have we sat back and said “I can do that job”?

Now. To be clear. I am going to talk about this from a business-to-business perspective and not the corner of the bar-to-‘some job’ perspective because from the corner of the bar, after a couple of beers, any of us can do any job better than the person who is currently doing it.

This is an “I have been in the workplace, I feel like I have had some success and … well … shit … I can do that job”perspective.

OK … I am chuckling a little, c’mon, let’s face it, I don’t care who you are and where you have worked, you have eyed what another person is doing and thought you could do it. At some point, if you have had some success, all jobs start having some commodity-like characteristics which tease you into believing shifting from one to another just isn’t that difficult.

Ok. To be fair. I have never lacked in business confidence. I do not believe there is a business problem that cannot be solved and I also believe <with some realistic pragmatic goggles on> that there is not a problem I cannot solve if I hunker down and get all the information I need. This can make me aggravating to work with on occasion because, well, I make no apologies for “how I may repair things”.

But that shouldn’t be confused with believing I can do any job.

Ok.

Yeah.

I admit.

I am certainly guilty at points in my career where I have certainly thought “I could do that job” over a wide array of responsibilities and unrelated industries.

Note. I rarely thought I could do it better … just that I could do it.

……….. my MBA at Wake Forest experience ………..

I would say that my MBA experience, a great experience with great professors at Wake Forest, encouraged me to think this way. It was a case study program which inherently encouraged thinking skills over black & white discipline skills. I tend to believe a good MBA program insures you know enough about a specific discipline to be dangerous if you overestimate your own knowledge, but effective enough to be able to understand the discipline to apply it in a general management scope.

Now.

In general, I think this attitude, on the positive side, permits you to make the leaps you have to make to jump into new jobs, new responsibilities and new positions.

In general, I think this attitude, on the negative side, can make you overlook some skills other people have as well as … at its worst … can put you in positions in which you will fail in a spectacular fashion.

I imagine as someone gets promoted, as I did, every step up showed me that there was a shitload I didn’t know overall, as well as about the responsibilities of a specific job, but at the same time it also continuously reinforced that I could “do that job.”

Success in business is a double edged sword.

Conversely.

………. what you know versus what you do not know ………

As someone gets promoted they also can see that some people got their jobs not because they necessarily had the experience or skills for the job, but simply because they had the appearance they could do the job.

You watched as these people invested gobs of energy trying to “fake it until they actually make it” or, worse, they realized they were in over their heads and invested even more energy simply maintaining a facade of bullshit to hide their hollowness.

I would also note that given your experience on the last thing I just shared that also encourages someone to believe they could, well, “do that job.”

The higher I got and the broader my experiences, my sense of “I cannot really do that job” increased with regard toward the jobs I really shouldn’t do. It didn’t diminish my sense of ability to handle increased responsibility, it simply made me more reflective of other skill sets and the reality of certain jobs.

To be clear. There is a certain group of people who never reach this realization. They tend to be either sociopaths or oblivious narcissists, but they do exist.

Anyway. My real realization on this topic came when I reached a general management position <and did some consulting>.

It was there that I recognized jobs are like icebergs. 90% of a job you never see until you actually do the job. And to successfully do the part you don’t see needs a couple of things beyond the obvious ‘I need to be competent with regard to the specific skill itself’ aspect:

Attitude alignment

This attitude goes way beyond the simplistic “I can do the job.” This attitude is more with regard to what you are actually good at.

As I have stated before I am more a renovator than a builder. That is a mindset. My attitude is just put me in a room with all the puzzle pieces and I can rearrange them, maybe polish off a couple, maybe smooth out some edges that no longer fit well and put a different puzzle together that works better than the one that exists.

And then there are people who say ‘I envision a puzzle and build the pieces.”

Those are two different attitudes that, certainly, have some overlap but also, certainly, drive a different type of style and ability to succeed in one type of job versus another type of job. I believe many people are successful in their jobs, and new jobs, because they have the proper insight into themselves and position themselves well to take advantage of this insight.

I would also add that a leader who can see within a person’s ‘skill set’ to recognize this attitude will also be the type who can hire incredibly effectively. Not all leaders and hirers can. Some simply see the façade and surface abilities and believe they are easily transferable and hire them believing anyone can do the job if they have that appearance of a type of surface skill set.

The less-than-obvious skill set

… example of under the radar understanding (Juran Institute) …

Each skill, each specialty, has layers to its depth & breadth. Let’s say this is the “art” of the skill <I sometimes refer to it as “the shadow of your skill”>.

When you are a junior person you are demanded day in and day out to craft your pragmatic ‘non-artistic’ skills. You learn how to screw screws into holes efficiently and hammer nails into their proper places effectively.

As you gain seniority you are demanded to start incorporating the art aspects of your craft. I like to explain this as you have to learn to be more of an architect of your department, skill and specialty. By the way, not everyone can do his and not every department head is good at this and it tends to start filtering out those who move on to the next level … general management.

And if you move up even more into general management you are demanded to gain some skills in the “art” of combining all the skills into the overall progress of a company beyond the simplistic “are each department doing their fricking job.”

In general the biggest difference between thinking you can do a job and actually being able to do the job is your less than obvious skill set. For example … I cannot tell you how many times I have sat in a conference room with a CFO who has displayed a skill set that made me think “shit, this company is lucky to have them” not because they knew all the accounting mumbo jumbo, but because they knew how to wield account skills in ways that the company benefited beyond accounting.

Pick your C-level title and I would say the same thing.

At the corner of the bar you have no clue whether you have this ‘less than obvious skill set’ and if you actually have the experience you may only have a sense of whether this skill set exists. This is an intangible, however, 90% of the time this intangible arises from some relevant experience <maybe not within that specific discipline but a discipline nonetheless> … so your experience does matter.

So.

I decided to write about this today because, frankly, we have a president who believes anyone can do any job and keeps hiring people who may be smart <and may not be … because I, frankly, question whether the President is smart> for positions they have no or little qualifications for that position.

I decided to write about this today because, frankly, as a business guy I know you cannot do a job simply because you say “I can do that job” and that experience really does matter and that simply because you believe something … <sigh> … does not make it so.

I will say that I have learned this lesson the hard way and it permits me to be able to call a bullshitter a bullshitter and to be able to point out that some roles & responsibilities dictate at least some relevant experience in order to be effective & efficient. Just because you think you can “do that job” does not mean you can actually “do that job.” It takes some self-awareness to know that.

The lack of self-awareness has a ripple effect.

In a bar your lack of self-awareness can create a range of responses – some chuckles, out right laughter of disbelief and maybe even some aggravation if it inches into what some of the people actually do sitting at the table.

In a business your lack of self-awareness can create some real business repercussions. Not only may you be out of your depth but you may actually start making some poor hires who are also out of their depth and that kind of shit gathers negative momentum <down the slippery slope of less-than-competent results>.

In business you get fired for that shit.

In a presidency your lack of self-awareness can create some real country repercussions – and we are seeing some of that lack of effectiveness now.

“And our team is mature enough to understand that, to have perspective and to feel fortunate for this opportunity.”

—-

Ron Turcotte

===========

Opportunities. Suffice it to say we all seek opportunities. I would also suggest because we tend to think about opportunities like wishes granted by rubbing some magic genie bottle we associate some fabulous concepts to them:

Fate.

Destiny.

Hard work.

Making your own luck.

Look. I think it’s a little crazy when people say they deserve a chance or deserve an opportunity or even because they ‘worked hard’ that opportunity was deserved in some way. To be clear. I believe society should be fair in that if you present yourself, put forth the effort, you should get an opportunity.

But. While opportunities always exist, you are not guaranteed to get them. Life is indifferent to you. So, yes, sometimes you can do all the right things, work hard, be smart, and while some opportunities may come your way, well, they just will not be ‘the’ opportunities that can make the positive difference in your Life.

Therefore. If you get an opportunity, feel fortunate <and do your best to not waste it>. For some reason I believe a lot of people will find that thought debatable. Maybe it feels a little to, well, passive. But here is the truth. 6billion+ people are all striving for something better and some of those billions may actually want to be in the same place seeking the same opportunities as you and, well, you cannot all be in the same place at the same time even while seeking the same thing.

===========

“…. I just have to ride him accordingly. I don’t think anyone can tell a jockey what to do. I had a free hand when I was riding most of the time, but when they tie your hand and give you orders to be placed somewhere or do this or do that — ‘I want you to lay third,’ or ‘I want you to lay fourth’ — it might be 10 horses in the race, and nine of them have the same orders.”

===========

Or.

===

“We can’t all be in the same place, so when the gate opens, you’re on your own.”

Turcotte

==========

So many times we say ‘this is the way to win’, but, you know what? Everyone is trying to win.

Oftentimes winning is about context and managing the moment.

Someone can tell you ‘this is the way to do it’, but … trust me … in Life you have to use a free hand to win the race.

Lastly.

It is silly to suggest there isn’t some competition in Life. We may not like it and there are certainly unhealthy dimensions, yet, compete we do. And we will also compete over opportunities and because we do so we will view them in a variety of ‘win or lose’ dimensions.

This leads me to Humility. Or maybe the simple acceptance of what happens.

The year was 1965, and Turcotte, then 23, was aboard a horse named Tom Rolfe, whom he had ridden to a Preakness win after a third-place finish in the Kentucky Derby. Turcotte made his move too early in that race and ended up losing by a neck at the line to a Florida-bred horse called Hail To All.“It was completely my fault,” Turcotte said. “I knew the horse’s fitness and all that, and I should have waited a little bit longer, and I got the horse beat. I don’t know if I was one of the best (that year), but the best can get beat the same way.”

Whew. So he admitted … yup … admitted … he was the reason he lost.

Yikes. Imagine that. That’s integrity.

Almost all in the horse racing industry said Turcotte’s unimpeachable integrity may be his most defining and notable distinction. Not competitiveness. Not wins or losses. Integrity.

Well. I think everything else I have written about Life and horse racing is almost irrelevant compared to that last thought.

Unimpeachable integrity.

Opportunities exists and, frankly, the majority of us will almost always feel like we have missed opportunities, messed up opportunities or even believe opportunities missed us in favor of other people. That said. Life, as it should be lived, is always grounded in unimpeachable integrity.

Feel fortunate with the opportunities you get and treat each opportunity with unimpeachable integrity and I imagine you will live a good Life.

“I am confident that, in the end, common sense and justice will prevail.

I’m an optimist, brought up on the belief that if you wait to the end of the story, you get to see the good people live happily ever after. “

—

Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam

====================

Well. I, frankly, cannot see how anyone could go through life without any optimism. I don’t see how anyone could live anything other than a fairly dismal life if all you did was embrace cynicism & skepticism. Fortunately, I do not believe many people are that completely dismal. I tend to believe most people believe common sense and justice may not always prevail, but certainly has better than even odds of prevailing in Life.

I actually think the bigger issue is that we sometimes feel suffocated by negativity and perceived ‘badness’ all around us. It can seem crushing on occasion. So crushing that it sometimes seems like it is more powerful than justice … and certainly more powerful than common sense.

Well. Certainly hope requires thinking. But thinking far too often remains just that … thinking … and no doing.

Lunch bucket hope is about putting in the work.

Lunch bucket hope is about full dreaming and not hollow promises.

Lunch bucket hope is about the harsh truths and not ignoring truths.

Lunch bucket hope is about recognizing ‘what is’ can change but ‘what will be’ will not happen magically.

This lunch bucket attitude combined with optimism, at its core, brings a belief that nothing may work. but that everything might work.

It is about understanding that there is no one silver bullet to solve something or to dramatically turn things around, but understanding that if you try 100 different things and each one makes even a little impact that there will be progress <and you get just a bit closer to what you hope>.

It is about recognizing that Life is rarely simple cause and effect and more likely a series of complex intertwined events <not chaos>.

It is about seeing that Life is always a work in progress where many times progress is difficult to distinguish from stagnancy.

It is about seeing that change, more often than not, is neither spectacular nor disruptive, but rather subtle nudges easily overlooked.

And … it is about only being confident that common sense and justice will prevail if you bring a lunch bucet attitude along with your optimism & hope.

This permits my type of optimism to not be some kind-hearted pushover, but rather one capable of yelling, sharing hard feedback and resilient to a world which, very often, brings an even harsher cynicism.

My type of optimism defends the arc of history which embraces good against the attacks of bad … which relentlessly seek to slow the natural arc of progress.

And, yet, as I defend what I view a the good arc of history I bring a legitimate care for the world at large along with, what could be viewed as cold & harsh, a view in which I may simply see people as the actors on the stage of this greater world.

I do believe kindness & generosity differentiate performance; not successes & wins. This is not an easy task the pragmatic optimists take on. It demands that you have to do hard things and sometimes be hard in how you deal with Life … all the while keeping kindness in your heart.

I once used Jamie Varon’s words to say I am a professional aspirationalist. <That’s not a word, but I’ve made it into one, since there was nothing that could quite describe me because I didn’t want to say I’m a “professional dreamer” because that sounds like some hippie shit. I have aspirations, like, lots of them.>

===================

“I am not afraid of my truth anymore and I will not omit pieces of me to make you comfortable.”

Alex Elle

=====

I believe being a professional aspirationalist helps me to be a little more confident that common sense & justice & ‘good’ will prevail in today’s world.

I believe this because professional aspirationalist is a compass and not a destination. It is a direction.

Aspirationalist is a moving target.

Being an aspirationalist means not only having dreams, but dreaming and, yet, I remain a pragmatic optimist. It means I am restlessly pursing what is good and better … relentlessly seeking, traveling, doing, thinking … professionally constantly in motion <mentally or physically>.

To be clear.

All of this is not for the faint of heart.

All of this is not easy.

All of this is often an eternal struggle against a shitload of negative forces in the world.

But. Isn’t all of that truly what being yourself is all about?

Isn’t Life, and living it, sort of about having some courage to suggest ‘I will not omit things just to make you comfortable’ and finding your own version of bravery?

======

“I am a world that cannot be explored in one day. I am not a place for cowards.”

Caitlyn Siehl

======

I imagine my point is that today’s world, in general, is not a place and time for cowards.

In addition, being a pragmatic optimist means you are not a place for cowards. I say that because pragmatic optimism, professional aspirationalist, all these types of thoughts are not simply about being a dreamer, all these thoughts have rich & royal hues of reality threading its way through its fabric.

And you are forced to not be a coward because this pragmatic optimism demands people to think about dreaming, but also demands doing.

Pragmatically, we cynical optimists, aspirationalists as it were, do seek approval and acceptance and we do seek to actually do shit (albeit ‘good shit’).

Now … I could argue, whether you like it or not, whether you think it is right or wrong, in some form or fashion we all care.

We all care <not just aspirationalists> about all of this shit <and shit in general>.

We all care what the people around us think about us. And by people I mean everyone from those closest to you <who would most likely accept you in any shape and form you ended up in> to society overall.

And we all care about good shit happening rather than bad shit.

And we all care about providing some value to the world.

Uhm.

But maybe that is where being a cynical optimist, a practical dream, a professional aspirationalist has an edge in today’s world.

We do not seek solely finding value from proving ourselves to others.

We don’t accept solely finding value in and of ourselves.

We seek finding value in uncovering pragmatic ways that our optimism can come to Life.

The value resides in the fact that the proof exists in our optimism being vindicated.

In the end.

It may very well be my timeand the time for people who think as I do. We cynical optimists. And I am okay with that.

================

“It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, “Wait on time.”

But just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean there isn’t an invisible demon about to eat your face.”

―

Jim Butcher

===

“Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present at all.”

—

Evelyn Waugh

===

“Panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is alive.”

―

William S. Burroughs

=======================

Ok. This is about life as a business leader.

I do not care how good you are as a business leader, you will get squeezed. If you suck, you get squeezed often. If you are good, you only get squeezed on occasion. But good or bad … all business leaders get squeezed at some point.

What do I mean by squeezed?

In general, the responsibility world, as viewed by a manager, is a fairly vast place because it rarely is defined solely by direct reports or even full departments you manage but rather all dimensions emanating outwards from every decision you, or your employees, may make.

The good news about this is that within all that vastness there is a lot of room to let some of the more horrible or horribly mundane crap just slip by.

The bad news occurs when all of a sudden the world shrinks and you feel squeezed and evaluated by the what you had considered fairly mundane up until that moment.

And this can happen a lot easier than one may think.

Between politics in the office, relentless evaluation from outside the organization as well as inside the organization and the normal ebbs & flows of everyday business which seem to almost simultaneously uncover grains of truth and cover grains of truth the vastness of what you actually do can become small pretty quickly under all this scrutiny.

And, if you are not careful, you get squeezed into … well … not nothingness but certainly “lessness.”

I would suggest any manager worth a shit will almost always fight back <or respond> to getting squeezed. It is almost a survival instinct, but it can also be an ego instinct.

Regardless. You gotta sharpen your elbows and create some space for yourself in between what all the scrutiny is suggesting <which often feels a lot like demanding> and what your current role is outlining as the right way to think and behave.

But here is the hard part. And it is kind of surprisingly hard.

It is fairly easy to sharpen your elbows and fight back, but without some thought you are simply fighting — fighting with no purpose other than it feels good to fight <or you are fighting simply out of thoughtless, or less than thoughtful, survival>.

And while fighting back in and of itself is somewhat satisfying because you feel like you should … it is less than satisfying because it has no real focus or purpose. It doesn’t have any ‘long game’ aspects involved <and if you have any desire to be a good leader/manager you have to be able to view beyond the present moment>.

I would argue this is where ‘knowing what you want and knowing who you are rears its ugly head.

Suffice it to say when you get squeezed you are gonna respond in some way.

You have to. Because if you are a manager managing the shit in the present it is a fairly small window in which to work. That small window gets even smaller if you are getting squeezed by the past and future challenges. This is what you will inevitably see as some response options:

Tripling down on what you believe makes you look good <this is image … putting on a good face … “talking the talk”>.

The risk on this one is that … well … you may be trying to look good on something you may not actually look good doing. In addition. If you are a crappy actor people ll see what you are trying to do.

Doubling down on what you are actually good at <usually with words and sometime directing people to do shit>.

The risk on this one is that what you are good at may not actually be what is needed to get out of the squeeze. You are definitely, and defiantly, playing to your strengths but it just may not be what it takes to penetrate the weakness in the squeeze.

Flee<absolve of responsibility>.

The risk in this is you are a leader & a manager and you have absolved yourself of responsibility. If you cannot make the responsibility stick with someone else, I can guarantee that the responsibility will stick with you like your shadow wherever you flee.

Find a different enemy so that the squeeze decides to go elsewhere.

The risk in this is being “anti” something is pretty easy but standing for something is really hard <and most people know that>. I could actually suggest in some ways being anti is lazy.

So. All of that leads me to the best way to get out of a squeeze.

Stand for something.

The risk in this is, well, there is not really a shitload of risk unless you elect to stand for something stupid, bad or idiotic. But if you do this right … convince yourself that what you are standing for is something worthwhile but also mentally accept it may not perfectly align with your group norms as well as societal norms … but still be the right thing to stand for.

All that said. Unfortunately getting squeezed can also encourage another outcome & response – paranoia.

In fact … I almost called this paranoia (enemies everywhere). I almost did that because paranoia is possibly the worst reflective response to being squeezed. What I mean is that once you have been squeezed a portion of you may start worrying that there is some hidden cabal or agenda ‘out to get you.’

But I did not call it that because paranoia is only one possible response to getting squeezed.

I would suggest that paranoid carries a fairly negative connotation. The reality is having a slight thread of paranoia <lets say “proportionate to your depth of confidence”> can often keep your head out of your own ass and more on a swivel watching what is going on around you. Some would suggest it keeps you aware of your “what if” muscle. I would suggest it can keep your “if it can go wrong, it will” muscle.

Paranoia, when living in a healthy state, often helps your view of all the potential outcomes and solutions, with a thought of “proactiveness” to head off shit before it even exists. Obviously, if paranoia is your only response to being squeezed and is your constant state of mind, that is neither healthy for you or the organization.

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“Paranoia is just the bastard child of fear and good sense.” (Charlie)

“Poor thing. Let’s adopt it, give it a last name and raise it right.” (Jace)

“You want to get it a puppy, too?”

“Sure. We’ll call it Panic. It and little Paranoia can play together at the park and scare the hell out of all the other kids.”

D.D. Barant

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In the end, all managers and leaders get squeezed at some point. I would also suggest that how you navigate ‘the squeeze’ early in your management career will set you on a certain type of path with regard to how you manage being squeezed. And, just like with any pattern, the more often something works the more likely you will be to continue doing it.

Yes.

I will agree that sometimes a new challenge later on in Life will force someone to reflect and ‘rise to the occasion’ and shed some of the lesser aspects of who and what they may have been up to that point, but most people just stick with what they believe got them to where they are.

All I can say is that being squeezed has a tendency to squeeze out whatever character you may have within – some will be disappointed by what is squeezed out and some will be pleased. Just know that whatever is squeezed out can be seen by everyone.

“More than anything, to me, he was dad. And what a dad. He loved us with the passion and the devotion that encompassed his life. He taught us to believe in ourselves, to stand up for ourselves, to know ourselves and to accept responsibility for ourselves.

—-

Justin Trudeau at his father’s funeral

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Personal responsibility is hard. Much much harder than conceptually it sounds like it should be.

I do not have any research today to show how people who have a strong sense of personal responsibility attained that character trait <although if you google it there are gobs of people with an opinion on it>.

For everyone who had great parents who taught them I can give you a dozen examples of people with crappy parents who have a strong sense of personal responsibility.

For every victim mentality person I can show different contextual situations that got them into that state of mind and, just as well, the path to a strong sense of personal responsibility is numerous and rarely a straight path.

But, even without research I will suggest a couple of things:

1. Personal acceptance.

To have personal responsibility you almost have to have a strong foundation of personal acceptance.

I imagine I could suggest that if it doesn’t than you are simply ‘posing’ in an attempt to look like you are responsible <and that rarely can stand the test of time>.

Regardless. Somehow, someway people with a strong sense of personal responsibility have developed a strong sense of self. Not necessarily confidence, just self. They recognize ‘they is what they is’and accept the flaws <and try to improve in some way> and accept their strengths <but never take them for granted>.

In their personal acceptance we, around them, see ‘solid.’ We love these people on our business teams and friend teams, as peers or as leaders, because regardless of their IQ or leadership skills or professional skills … they are lighthouse people in their own right.

These people can also be baffling to the perfectionists in the world because part of ‘personal acceptance’ is understanding, if not embracing, imperfections.

2. Lucky to be here but many others are just as deserving.

Let me suggest that people with an incredibly strong sense of personal responsibility will also most likely be the people who suggest they had a little luck along the way – lucky in life situations, lucky with mentors, lucky in opportunities – and, even though they had worked hard with integrity, they had done nothing to actually deserve the luck.

As a corollary to this thinking they would also believe, as part of the luck aspect, that there are many others just as deserving. This attitude creates a sense of responsibility for actions, behavior and attitudes. Mistakes are owned and successes are shared.

Some people may suggest that personal responsibility and accountability is a reflection of integrity or humility.

Well.

It may be.

But I rather believe it is more a sense of understanding that successes are more often than not a reflection of just hard work but also circumstances. And, to that point, inherently someone with a strong sense of accountability balances success with the understanding that a portion of success is luck – luck of circumstance & luck of being the one where many were just as deserving if provided the opportunity.

Like I said in the beginning. This is not based on research and you can toss this into your ‘Bruce bullshit bin’ if you want. But I do not need research to state that personal responsibility and personal acceptance takes work. Lots of work and lots of fortitude.

It is the kind of thing you spend your entire life working hard to not only ‘be’ but to live up to the character standard you have set for yourself. A standard which you will never measure others against because, well, it is personal. You are accountable to your own standard and responsible to meet it. And everyone not only has the ability to set their own but they also have an unequivocal right to do so without anyone else telling them “how to be accountable.”

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“It was instead something that we would have to spend the rest of our lives to work very hard to live up to.”

Spike Lee

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Personal responsibility is actually one of Life’s lightest burdens if you choose to accept it. That is why I am so often surprised by how many people actually do not accept this burden.

But, in the end, personal responsibility is a personal choice. No one can convince you to do it or be that way. You have to help yourself on this one because no one else can.

This is the word to use when evasion is achieved by clouding the issue.

Creating a smoke-screen.

prevaricate, evade, dodge

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“When shrouded meanings and grim intentions are nicely polished up and pokerfaced personae are generously palming off their fantasy constructs, caution is the watchword, since rimpling water on the well of truth swiftly obscures our vision and perception.

(“Trompe le pied/wrong foot.”)”

―

Erik Pevernagie

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So. There is possibly nothing more aggravating in business than someone not answering “the” question. To be clear on what I am speaking about. The person answers a question just not the one you asked.

I am not going to argue that some questions are not easy to answer. I won’t even argue that we get asked questions we don’t know the answers to but the situation dictates we make something up <yes … that happens in business>. But abandoning the question completely is complete bullshit.

But you know what?

I think the main reason it is so aggravating is because it is truly a reflection of intentions. There is even a book called The Anthropology of Intentionsby a professor, Alessandro Duranti, who kind of tackles this whole discussion of intentions & words. He offers us the thought of ‘intentional discourse’ wherein an individual filters words through their beliefs & desires and their plans & goals to guide the discourse <regardless of whether the rest of the people want it guided that way>. In other words, using another phrase he offers us, by engaging in an intentional continuum people ponder their use of words through self-interest motivations <some good & some bad>.

By the way … I am fairly sure I mangled his academic masterpiece but you get the point.

Ah. “You get the point.” I share that again because while we sit there aggravated at someone who completely avoided answering the question asked we almost always also sit there wanting to invest a little of our own energy trying to assess why they did it. Because, in our aggravated minds, in its most simplistic viewing, avoiding the question is solely about shifting attention – away from something and toward something else.

…………… question deflection …………

Sure. It could be something as simple as steering you away from their lack of knowledge and steering you toward something they may actually know. But, in most cases, a full abandonment of a specific question is complete & utter deflection.

In the intelligence community they call this effort to shift attention as deflection or misdirection. Magicians do something similar getting people to focus on one thing and away from the trick itself. Completely avoiding the question is the business version of a distract-the-audience approach. It is this weird moment in which someone pretends to answer the question by actually answering some other question that magically appeared to replace the question really asked. It’s almost like entering an alternative universe for a while.

Sadly. Aggravated or not … the more practiced the deception <the more practiced the business magician is> the more likely you hesitate to step in <and the more you get aggravated as you hesitate> and correspondingly … the more many of these people actually believe deception works.

It is maddening.

Worse? If they are good at it, when someone responds to a question by not addressing the points of the question, thereby avoiding the issue itself, it doesn’t create unrelated discussion to the issue … it simply avoids the issue in totality.

Well. I am fairly sure we have all sat there in a meeting and watched something like this unfolding right before our eyes. The visceral response, the aggravation, we have to this ‘answer evasion’ situation is most likely found in the revelation it is occurring (watching it unfold before our eyes). Philosophically, we can see that through some internal conviction to retain something they feel like they should own <their reputation, their title, their perceived intelligence, their whatever> they justify evading the question.

Conviction. Yeah. I just used ‘internal conviction.’ This means their intentions reflect they are more important than not only the question itself … but you. You are not even dignified with an answer.

It is irksome <at its least worst>.

It is loathsome <at its most worst>.

Look. I give a partial pass to the asshats you can see who have some answer they want to give everyone, regardless of what question is asked, and blurt it out when given the opportunity. They haven’t deflected the question they just ignored it as unimportant to what they want to say and have been planning to say no matter what has been said up to that point. It’s the ones you know heard the question and just ignored it. Or avoided it. Or just didn’t answer it despite the fact they heard every word, every syllable and every intention from the question giver.

In other words, they intentionally do not answer the question.

<envision a deep sigh here>

I want people to face questions head on. And what makes this even more aggravating is that you know these people are quite capable of taking things head on.

How do I know that? These are the same people who will attack, or ‘aggressively question’, the intentions of the question giver themselves. It is a common tactic for the answer avoiders. The natural instinct is to ‘defend’ … to answer the attack. Fuck that. I want to say … “just answer the fucking question asked.”

How else do I know these people are quite capable of taking questions head on? These are the same people who will attack, or ‘aggressively question’, the question itself. This is not a deflection tactic. This is a ‘turn the question back on itself’ tactic. And, once again, your natural instinct is to defend or, well, answer the question you are asked. Aggravating. I want to say … “just answer the fucking question asked, you shithead.”

And maybe what makes this ‘not answering the question asked’ so maddening is that we, most sane pragmatic business people, tend to sit back <after saying “WTF”> and try and unravel why it happened and what the hell just happened. Unless you are in an interview scenario <in which you always have an opportunity, one-to-one, to hunker down and hammer out a clear answer> you are most likely in a room with other people and the non-answer has sent at least some of the people careening down a completely different road.

That makes it even MORE aggravating.

One intentional non answer to a question can completely derail a meeting or a discussion. That is intentional discourse. Or how about the other phrase from that academic’s book … engaging in an intentional continuum.

Oh. One last way you know these asshats are intentionally not answering the question is when they cleverly decline to answer the question with the infamous head fake answer … “I don’t know the answer to that question. I’ll work on finding the information for you and then get back to you with an answer” <and they have no intention of ever getting back to you>.

Yeah. You know … sure as shit … they have no plans to work on it and will never ‘get back to you’ unless you call them on it. They are intentionally refusing to answer the question assuming the conversation will move on and, in a laundry list of other shit to do, that this one will either never make the list or be so low on the list they can stiff arm you on answering based on “working on things more important.”

Its bullshit. You know its bullshit. They know its bullshit.

Well.

Fuck you.

Fuck you and the non-answering horse you rode in on.

In my mind a good well-articulated question demands some accountability. The one given the question is now accountable for the answer. They may try and deflect and they may just answer a completely different question … but a question asked exists … it does not disappear. You cannot get away from it.

You open your front door in the morning and there is a nice pile of dog poop squarely in the middle of your front door opening. You either clean it up or you avoid it. The question dodger never acknowledges the pile and steps over it moving on to something else. The shit stays at the front door and over time the smell increases and the flies crowd around. A good question unanswered is just like that. And a question dodger cannot avoid the smell in the end.

All that said. My message to the asshats who completely do not answer the question asked: You will be accountable to the question and to cleaning up the mess … now … or later <and quit aggravating me by not answering the question, you shithead>.

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Author note:

When I reread this, which took me less than a ½ hour to write, I was a little surprised by how … well … aggravated the tone was.

Some ‘fucks’ and ‘asshats’.

I left it as is because as a 50something business guy who has always attempted to take on what needs to be taken on regardless of how painful t may have been <and career wise possibly less than prudent> I get a little angry about how the business world has become incredibly unkind to the risk takers & truth tellers and seems to reward the less-than-competent and ‘political maneuverers’ more often than it should. That’s my excuse for why I let this one stand as it does.

“We tend to hold ourself accountable for things we never did. Hearts we never broke. People we didn’t hurt. Souls we didn’t crush. “

—

coral-vellichor

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All these years I’ve been looking at the wrong side.

—

(via madelinemharris)

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Ok. Accountability, or responsibility, is always a good business topic. And, yes, I am a big personal responsibility person. But in business, within an organization, responsibility tends to be more shared responsibility than simple personal responsibility. I thought about this during a discussion on Distributed Leadership/Holocracy/etc type business models. These discussions tend to revolve around flat, flatter & flattened operating models. The point being everyone agrees there has to be some leadership roles and, yet, not be hierarchy or command/control.

Anyway. To be clear. I believe there is a strong relationship between shared responsibility and personal responsibility. The stronger the shared responsibility attitude & behavior within leadership & mentors & role models the stronger the development of personal responsibility muscle occurs in everyday schmucks like me. Conversely, if you are surrounded with lack of shared responsibility examples <or even those who espouse ‘selectively chosen shared responsibility’> the value of personal responsibility diminishes to an individual, therefore, they see less value in exhibiting personal responsibility.

We don’t talk about this relationship enough. Far too often we flippantly suggest “people should take responsibility for their actions.”

Well … no shit Sherlock. But if your role models or leaders are constantly passing the buck when the shit hits the fan to save their own bacon <and image> then what the hell … why would you not do the same?

Yeah. Sure. Everyone has to pull their weight and do their job and do what they say they are going to do … but very very rarely does an individual perform in a vacuum in a business.

This happens more so even in management. It drives me a little nuts when I hear some leaders discuss “delegating.”

Somehow delegating equals “absolved of responsibility.”

This is stupid irresponsible thinking.

My belief that it is stupid thinking is rooted in some common sesne I am fairly sure the US Military says:

You can delegate authority, but you cannot delegate responsibility.

In other words … you can give others the power to do things … you can delegate … but, no matter what happens … if something goes wrong … the final responsibility always lies with the one who has delegated authority. Sticking with the military as my guidance … this means if your business has an initiative that has gone SNAFU <“Situation Normal: All Fucked Up”> the blame … and the ultimate responsibility for the mistakes <fuck ups> falls … uhm … up.

The leader assumes responsibility. This is shared responsibility. In other words … this is leadership.

Once you become a business leader past a mom & pop management style business you have to face the concept of shared responsibility <and some embrace it and some reject it>.

Despite the fact you have delegated authority that ‘authority’ does not represent a discrete event and period in time. You bear the responsibility for the cascade of events, decisions and actions leading up to the ‘authority giving’ which means everything you have done up until that point provides the context for the delegating … yeah … you own the arena in which you have placed the delegatee.

But this gets exponentially worse <if you are thinking about becoming a business leader>. You actually also share responsibility for the consequences — intended and unintended. This is different than delegating authority <although it relates to it> and owning responsibility for the action … this goes beyond to the actual ripples from the decisions & actions.

Now. Some leaders have a nasty habit of assuming responsibility for the decision and the effect of the decision — within a finite period of time. The weakest leaders try and tie “that was out of my control” or “I wasn’t there for that” as soon as they can to a decision they make. The strongest leaders worry less about any carnage that has been left behind, but rather start worrying about any carnage the decisions & actions could possibly create for the future.

The truth is that business leaders should take a moment and remember the wise words of an American Indian. Red Cloud, an Oglala Lakota leader who led his people against the U.S. Army and later as his people transitioned from life on the plains to the reservation, stressed that when Indian people made a decision, it should be done with the welfare of the next seven generations in mind.

In a short term world where most business leaders are trying to make quarterly goals and just try and keep their job … thinking with the welfare of the next 7 generations seems … well … impossible. I imagine the real point is that most good business leaders assume some responsibility for the generations to come. Some people may call this ‘long term strategy’ and some others will call it ‘keeping your eye on the horizon’ or even ‘having a vision’, well, I am no Harvard Business guru and all that high falutin’ stuff seems unnecessary. To me it is much more simple. You make decisions accepting the burden of responsibility for what will come and may arise from your decision.

You share the responsibility for what will, or may, come. And if you do that? Damn. You will do good and be good. And if you do not do that? Damn. You may get a shitload of attention and applause in the moment and a shitload of attention and anger in the future.

Why do I say that?

Because if you don’t really believe in shared responsibility and flit from one decision to the next in a transactional “responsible only to the moment” way you will end up rushing from issue to issue, reacting without a plan or a strategy or <worse> no care of longer term affect, creating carnage yet to be seen <because that type of leader tends to seek only the cheers in the moment>.

Just to point it out … with no plan that means anything can happen and a leader can justify anything. Because with no plan to measure a decision against anything can look right … and unpredictable can be touted as ‘flexible to the situation.’

All of this fits a short term leader in a short term world.

The people are few and far between these days who weigh their responses and assess long term affects. In today’s world it almost seems a race to be the first to judge or comment on a decision or action and far too many leaders actually manage to the public race to comment rather than the longer term assessment.

This is scary stuff for anyone to do but a business leader? Dangerous.

Even the best short term decision makers, if forced into a gauntlet of short term decisions, will struggle to insure at the end of the gauntlet they have kept walking northwards as they had been looking down the entire time. More often than not North will not be the direction you are facing nor will you have actually moved any closer to the North star.

I am not suggesting this longer term shared responsibility attitude is easy. In fact .. it is really really hard. In fact … it almost means you have to embrace a little “impossible” into what you actually make possible.

Huh?

In general I have always liked logical thinking <no matter how random the logic may be> but I always love it when someone combines some unexpected logic. Generally speaking the best unexpected logic actually comes from those who do the impossible … thinking of the impossible and seeing possibilities — the impossible being “knowing for sure what will happen in the future.” They make the spectacular leaps/chances, accepting responsibility and sharing responsibility, so that business can make the needed changes or just do the semi-risky things that keep a good business doing good things <things that may push against the borders of the status quo>.

Yeah.

Spectacular errors can only happen if you take spectacular chances. I am not fond of irresponsible risk taking and decision-making, but I am fond of doing ‘the right thing’ even when it may appear to be going against the stream. Sometimes that means a spectacular success, sometimes a spectacular error. But always something spectacular. And, I will tell you, what more could you want to say about your life as a leader but that you have done something spectacular? Especially if that ‘spectacular’ actually happens a generation later which permits you to sit back and say “I did the impossible … I viewed the future well.’

Anyway.

Shared responsibility is the burden of any good leader. They tend to be the leaders who understand they cannot really be sure what is going to happen to them over time, they weigh the risks to the best of their ability and let the chips fall as they may. I tend to believe their attitude is one of “you don’t want to act more fearfully than you have to.”

Good leaders have a tendency to hold themselves accountable for anything, everything and everyone … in varying degrees depending on the anything, everything and everyone. And, maybe most importantly, I tend to believe they understand that there is a relationship between shared responsibility and personal responsibility. And, practically speaking, you will never be viewed as a true leader if you do not.

Well.

You know what? To end this thing today let me offer two other words, typically associated with responsibility, obligation and duty.

Obligation refers general to something you are compelled to do by regulation, law, promise or morality. I think good leaders feel obligated to assume shared responsibility.

Duty, more so than obligation, springs from an internal moral or ethical impulse rather than from external demands.

I think good leaders feel a duty, not just obligation, to assume shared responsibility. Shared responsibility … not only do I believe we should discuss it more often <because it will foster better value in personal responsibility> but I also believe we should be demanding it of our leaders more often.

There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair.

That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling… “

—

Aldous Huxley

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Life truths.

Hard and lightly.

Haste with patience.

Forward diagonally.

Happy and sad.

Success and failure.

Right and wrong.

Thinking and doing.

Dreams and hard work.

Whew. This means that the truly great things in Life may be a coin you can put in your pocket — a coin made up of two sides and two faces.

Yeah. Life is usually a combination of opposites fighting a tug of war moment to moment. I bet no one told you that. Far too often we are told the secret to life is one thing. Far too often someone is not telling is the truth <or maybe they don’t really know the secret to life?>.

Th truth is Life <and business also> is a wonderful, maddening blob of inconsistency.

The only way to survive , and not be totally boring, inept or a hermit, is to steal a little of something from both sides and do your best to balance it all out in the end.

Balance?

I need some sadness to recognize true joy <only I certainly don’t want to dwell on sadness nor walk around as Happy the Clown every minute of the day>.

I want a leader who is energetic and demanding and cajoling, pushing, shoving, pulling, inspiring people toward a horizon < but I want the moments of idle strength and compassion intertwined>.

I want to work hard … so hard the muscles, brain and/or physical, are strained and hurt … and get to maybe get a glimpse of one of my dreams on occasion <so I can dream a little when not working hard>.

I want people to play hard and play to win <in any endeavor> … but do so with grace in victory & loss, with sportsmanship & fairness and respect for the game.

I want … well … it doesn’t matter what I want. Pick your ‘hard-lightly’ Life combination. I guarantee you will find the most interesting people, most interesting experiences, most interesting moments, most interesting anythings … are a reflection of this ying-yang combination. Life is meant to be lived, and experienced, hard & lightly.

Now. By the way.

Just because Life is meant to be lived this way doesn’t mean it is easy to actually live it that way. Living hard, or living lightly, is not only addictive but also often generates a sense of ‘lostness’ when shelved for a bit.

Why lostness?

Well. It is mostly fear that we will not refind or regain it … therefore we hesitate to ever let it go from the way we currently live our Life.

So what do we do? We ‘take a break.’

We ‘get away from it all.’ In other words instead of seeking some ‘how we actually live’ balance in our lives we just step away from the way we live our Life by simply not going lightly <if we typically go hard> or not going go hard <if we typically go lightly> … we don’t do anything other than how we live our Life … we just choose to do nothing to ‘recharge.’

I would suggest that you don’t need to ‘take a break’ to recharge but rather if you seek the ‘yang’ to your ‘ying’ … well .. you will find additional purpose as well as your ‘ying’ takes on an entirely new image n your eyes & mind.

Regardless … just approaching Life one way means you miss out on what is most interesting in life … going hard & lightly.

Aw shit. Look. All I really know if that if you can figure out how to go hard … and tread lightly at the same time … you will most likely be successful in business & in Life. You will most likely be appreciated, respected, sometimes liked and certainly not hated. I know … I know … the ‘tread lightly’ part is really really hard if you like to live Life going hard.

But.

As I just told someone … go hard for the things you want and dreams you seek to reach toward and if you continue to do these things for you, knowing that your moral compass is set correctly and that your instincts with regard to ‘what is right’ versus ‘what is wrong’ are good, you will be happier and the people around you will rarely be disappointed.

“I supposed she was exhibiting what people nowadays refer to, with crushing disapproval, as denial.

It’s always been hard for me to tell the difference between denial and what used to be known as hope.”

—

Michael Chabon

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“She would consider each day a miracle – which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences.”

—-

Paulo Coelho

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Well.

As noted far too many times on Enlightened Conflict I am an unequivocal Hope guy.

Now.

That said.

Until I saw the opening quote I am not sure I have ever equated denial and hope in any form or fashion … let alone even thought there was a relationship between denial and hope.

But ever since I saved this quote <over a year ago> I have come back to it again and again thinking about whether we do actually navigate some line between hope and denial.

It also made me think about what Hope and Denial really is.

Hope is big.

And often it is so big we forget some of its dynamics. Hope, while encompassing a view with an eye toward some positive or favorable outcome, spans from something well founded in probability to something completely beyond the pale of possibility.

On one end is dream, with wish settled in beside it on some cloud, and on the other end is expect, with anticipate snuggled up beside it on a different cloud.

I imagine this is why we tend to immediately label someone’s hope as either false hope or realistic hope <when we actually mean one of the dynamics I just outlined>.

And what exactly is denial?

Denial is a little less complex <although it does have degrees> in that, at its core, it is the refusal to accept a past or present reality … a truth.

Simplistically, you refuse to see some harsh truths in reality. I could argue the two ends of the denial spectrum are simply “total” and “less-conviction” but instead I would just say that denial is like a border wall in which some places it is a little less thick than in others.

But denial has a nefarious side to it with regard to hope. Just ponder this for a minute or two … denial is pretending to have Hope, while you’re actually feeling there is no Hope.

If that is true, than denial’s relationship with Hope is more along the lines as a door between your reality and true Hope.

And maybe it is Denial’s responsibility to insure Hope is difficult enough to get to that we don’t more easily slide into the wishful thinking side of the spectrum rather than the anticipation or expectation side of the spectrum.

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“Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.”

—

The Architect from The Matrix, Reloaded

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Somewhere between hope and denial is where we usually seem to find the realism we need to shift Hope from false hope to real hope.

Well.

At least that’s what I think.

I had some help in this thinking. I grabbed one of my most used books on my bookshelf … The Essays of Montaigne … for a little guidance. I found it in an odd spot. In one of Montaigne’s 107 exploratory essays in one titled “That to Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die” <which I believe is actually a Cicero thought> Montaigne discusses Death & mortality … and points to the understanding of death as a prerequisite for the understanding of life, for the very art of living.

I read the essay and then went back and replaced Death with Denial.

Rather than indulging the fear of death <Denial>, Montaigne calls for dissipating it by facing it head-on, with awareness and attention:

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[L]et us learn bravely to stand our ground, and fight him. And to begin to deprive him of the greatest advantage he has over us, let us take a way quite contrary to the common course. Let us disarm him of his novelty and strangeness, let us converse and be familiar with him, and have nothing so frequent in our thoughts as Denial<sic>. Upon all occasions represent him to our imagination in his every shape; at the stumbling of a horse, at the falling of a tile, at the least prick with a pin, let us presently consider, and say to ourselves, ‘Well, and what if it had been Denial itself?’ and, thereupon, let us encourage and fortify ourselves.

Let us evermore, amidst our jollity and feasting, set the remembrance of our frail condition before our eyes, never suffering ourselves to be so far transported with our delights, but that we have some intervals of reflecting upon, and considering how many several ways this jollity of ours tends to Denial, and with how many dangers it threatens it.

The Egyptians were wont to do after this manner, who in the height of their feasting and mirth, caused a dried skeleton of a man to be brought into the room to serve for a memento to their guests.

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Well.

There is a thought, huh?

You have to face Denial and have some intervals of reflecting upon, and considering how many several ways this jollity of ours tends to Denial, and with how many dangers it threatens it.

Maybe this all suggests you have to actually find something about Hope to appreciate. It could be anything, even something tiny. And maybe that is where Denial serves its role … as Montaigne discussed Death maybe it is within our conflict with Denial in which we find that “something” that is meaningful and not simply some nebulous wishful thinking.

Look.

I balk at a coexisting relationship between Hope & Denial mostly because I struggle to believe you can effectively focus on the positive and the negative at the same time.

I balk at a coexisting relationship between Hope & Denial because hope, to me, is not simply the denial of reality.

I balk at a coexisting relationship between Hope & Denial because I believe Denial, when it occurs properly, may actually help someone navigate life to more, and better, Hope.

All that said.

I am not sure everyone walks paths of Life with signposts guiding them toward Denial on the way to some place called Hope but the ones who do recognize the signposts … I think that there isn’t really a line between denial and hope … I think that denial demands you run through it to get to Hope.

Okay.

Maybe it would be better to say that you have to push your way through denial to get to good clean hope.

But that is me … that is the relationship to me.

I have never really gotten a grip on whether I think Hope is fragile or the strongest thing in the world. I think Hope can easily be killed and, yet, it can offer a light in the darkest of dark.

And maybe that is where Denial comes into play.

In an unexpected way maybe when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences denial forges the strongest of our hopes so that they can withstand the darkest of dark and the grind of normality.